


Priority (LxReader)

by Myvanway



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Female Reader, Female pronouns, First Kiss, I am breaking my own heart with this, L Character Study, Let that boy find some sleep, Priorities, Protect L, Reader is basically just me, Reader-Insert, Rem did nothing wrong, Strawberry cake, Tragic Love, Two Shot, the bells are very loud today, the ringing of the bells is very loud today
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25023859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myvanway/pseuds/Myvanway
Summary: Two people having their priorities straight in life and being in love isn’t one of them, because of several reasons; one includes to never let anything be a distraction or a disturbance to the case and another is that being in love is simply scary and complicated, it would only cause too much pain–but the hearts wants what it wants and these two people find themselves yearning for each other...But being in love with the first, second and third greatest detective of the world while he plays a deadly game of knowledge, power and justice with a misguided boy, who wants to be a god could most likely lead to the much feared pain.
Relationships: L (Death Note) & Reader, L (Death Note)/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 28





	Priority (LxReader)

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome!  
> So glad you came around, I hope you enjoy what you find here.  
> A few things before we start, some “fun” facts about that story/ two-shot:  
> I actually started this story last November (2019) while I was watching Death Note for the very first time after falling hopelessly in love with Death Note–The Musical by Frank Wildhorn (if you don’t know the musical yet, please go and listen to it because it is a freaking masterpiece, you can thank me later. And no, I don’t get paid to say that. I just really love that musical and it was what got me into Death Note after all, without it we wouldn’t have this story now). I intended the story originally as a regular *fluffy* LxReader OS because I love L and this is what you do if have too many feels about a character, right?  
> Well, it quickly got angstier, more complex and darker than I originally aspired and it also got longer and on top of all of that it had turned into a kind of L character study as well. Oops?  
> During that time in November I was in the early stages of a real-life crush (that I have until this day and it’s driving me insane) and well, let’s just say I don’t deal with crushes well and therefore I used this story to cope with my own frustrations. In some way it was therapeutic for me but this also means that you get descriptions of having a crush through my eyes and experiences. If these experiences differ from yours feel free to adjust the story in your head.  
> Oh, before I forget it, English is my second language. I am doing my best in editing and working on my texts but please bare with me if you still find odd constructions or even mistakes.  
> I think this was it for the beginning.  
> Have fun reading, we’ll see each other again at the end of the first chapter.  
> Myvanway

Sleep was not a priority.

Strawberry topped cream cake was a priority.

And being Kira, Light Yagami, one step ahead in this deadly game they were playing was definitely the most important priority out of all.

And feelings of dependence, affection, care and uncertainty for one single person he knew for only a few months should not be a priority.

He should not care the way he did, he should not search the room for her and if she wasn’t there stare at the door in anticipation if she would come through it, waiting for her to finally come around.

He. Should. Not. Care.

(But he did.)

Being able to control his feelings, his emotions, made L Lawliet the world’s first, second and third best private investigator, he was able to collect, gather and analyse informations, clues and facts, focusing on all the evidences and finding the connection between them, all of that without unnecessary emotions that distracted him.

Feelings and emotions were not a priority.

But saying that L Lawliet was unable to feel emotions was not true.

He could feel emotions, he was human after all, he had only learned to ignore, suppress and to shove them away, bracing him for the world and his tasks and cases.

He had learned to be calm, cool minded and collected. It helped with investigations.

L was not a cold- hearted guy, tho, he did care.

In fact, he cared a lot.

He saw the injustice, the blind self-justice Kira spread in this world, L considered himself to be just and giving a voice to those whose voices were taken away by solving this case and by bringing Kira down was his way for living up to his standards.

He also felt a deep, deep connection, gratitude, love and affection, for Watari. Watari had saved him, had given him a home, a place to learn and grow, a safe haven and Watari became his family. And his partner in crime (solving).

The thought of not being with Watari some day anymore created a huge discomfort in his soul, made his heart ache, so he shoved the thought away, focusing on the here and now, with Watari on his side.

In the back of his mind was another thought, more a feeling, than a thought, more a picture than a feeling really- it was you, laughing a precious little laugh.

Your face nearly haunted him, your face in his mind confused him, _remembering_ you distracted him. A part of him was always occupied with the thought of you.

It was excruciating.

L’s otherwise crystal clear, brilliant mind had trouble ordering his thoughts, ideas, hypotheses because of an intruder, an emotion so deep, a connection so unwanted yet so fascinating and overwhelming, that he had began to wish she would leave the task force, even though she did a horrific job and she leaving would be a loss for the team and for being successful in solving this case.

Not having you around anymore would make this painful and definitely unwelcome longing for you disappear and he could be free again. Or so he imagined.

He tapped an unruly rhythm with his slender fingers on the computer keyboard’s surface. A little sign of his growing annoyance about the whole situation.

His heart had made an emotion, no, a someone with bright eyes and a honest, beautiful smile a priority, without his will and most definitely without his permission.

The worst about this whole situation was that his lips curled into a happy smile without his doing, just like now.

He, L, squatting on his chair, staring on the screens in front of him, while a warm, fuzzy feeling flickered through his tummy, making him nearly grin from one ear to the other.

What does one do about happiness that caused so much anxiety, anger and confusion?

What does someone like L do about such emotions?

He will make them vanish!

Feelings like these should not be a priority!

Solving the case was the priority and nothing else should matter!

‘I will finish what never began’, he decided and shoved the thought of ‘What if she feels the same?’ far, far into the back of his mind. Not in the back of his heart, his heart could not be trusted anymore.

L poured himself fresh coffee out of a thermo bottle, let one, two, three, four, five, six, seven sugar cubes splash, splash, splash into his cup, stirred and took a long sip.

The extra sweet coffee tasted bitter tonight.

“Uuuuuugh!”

You threw yourself onto your bed, face down and screamed into your pillows, trying to loose the tight knot of annoyance in your stomach.

Your muffled screams brought just a little relief to your poor heart and while you let out a growl through gritted teeth you turned around on your back.

Following on with chewing on the inside of your cheeks and grimacing towards your room’s ceiling, you wiggled your toes- this was going out of hand!

How could this happen? How _did_ that happen?

Your fingers were aggressively poking into the mattress’s material beneath you, you were angry.

Angry, tense and confused.

Falling in love was difficult for you, scared of loosing control and having your heart broken you had lived your life without actual crushes and romantic relationships.

Sticking to the fictional guys and gals instead. It was easier.

You had always guarded your heart, which was in fact quite easy since your standards got really high through your affection for the fictional people.

When you developed crushes on actual people you quickly shut them down, never letting feelings get too deep that they couldn’t be tamed.

This was not possible now.

The truth was that you were in love, no innocence crushing, no plain ‚I like to be near you and I hope you like me somehow‘, no it was love.

It must be love, otherwise you would have been able to get over your feelings by now.

It’s been four months. It’s been four months, nearly half a year, that you had the honour to work with the task force that was onto the Kira case. You were an IT expert and media analyst, meaning that you worked on finding the patterns in Kira‘s victims in time and place of their deaths and which informations about them had been available to the public by the time they were murdered.

And as the task force had shrunken drastically you had asked to be directly involved in the investigations, to work closely with the chief inspector Yagami and his team.

In desperate need of any helping eyes, hands and minds they had agreed. From this day on you were on board.

You had also been there when L had introduced himself to the task force, letting you all feel very stupid that you could have easily been running straight into a trap if L had been Kira…

You were captivated by L from the moment on you had heard his computer altered voice in the police's headquarters, somehow fascinated by the underlying softness of his voice that not even the computer was able to take away.

And when you were being face to face to that real-life crazy genius on that fateful day, you had looked at him closely, being as nosy as you just naturally were, taking his whole appearance in…

His wild dark hair, would combing do anything to it, you wondered, his face, sharp edged, a pointy chin and defined jaw line, skin so pale, so delicate and nearly see-through that it seemed like to be made out of silk paper and his big eyes, dark the iris and even darker the shadows under it…

When you had first seen him you were overthrown by the desire to make him sleep for 24 hours straight, he looked so weak, so tired–

But quickly you had learned that this was just his way of living and fulfilling his duties so after just a week of working at his side you had gotten used to him and his way of just being himself.

Working alongside of L, Ryuzaki as he had asked, more ordered to be called, and getting to know his quirks had actually it‘s upsides, like you would get served some of the finest sweets and treats.

On rare occasions Watari would hand you all an ice cream cone out of the blue or would bring cupcakes for everyone, the other times you had learned that even though L would not offer you something by himself, if you asked for a slice of cake, a bowl of pudding with fruits or whatever else it was that L just ate for getting his mind to work, you would get your part of the cake, quite literally, as well.

Often times L would even call Watari to get you something if you had asked for something that wasn’t there, usually because L had already eaten it.

His other quirk of being barefoot the whole day around made your sympathies for him only grow, you yourself liked being barefoot as well, always enjoying the freedom it brought to walk on naked soles and you actually started to take off your socks as well when you came into the current hotel room for work each morning. You got some weird looks from your colleagues but the more you all worked with L the more everyone got used to eccentrics of all kind.

And over time you found yourself getting fonder and fonder of him, unsuccessfully fighting the growing warmth you felt deep within your tummy every time that you thought of him. 

And your fluttering happiness only got worse when you studied his face closely from the side, taking in the line of his forehead, nose and curve of his lips, that had enough fullness to them, especially his lower lip, to drive you crazy by the mere thought of coming closer to him and imaging what his lips could do…

It didn‘t got any better, when you were watching him while he ate his sugar coated strawberries, glazed doughnuts or nibbled on his thumb while thinking.

You had your own ideas about where and what he could nibble and lick at.

And you hated yourself so much for these thoughts, firstly, they made dependent, always looking for his approval and his validation, especially when you imagined what you two could do, you longed for his touch, longing to hear that you were beautiful in someone else‘s eyes, that you were loved and secondly you were ashamed for these thoughts, feeling like you would harass and abuse him in your mind. You felt like a failure that you couldn’t keep your boundaries up, that you weren't able to keep yourself together.

And still you weren't able to shut your thoughts about L off, you wanted to be near him, see him, get to know him and protect him, hide him from whatever could or would bring harm to him.

Often times he seemed to be so frail, like a wind could blow him away with ease and you longed to give him security, a place to rest and to be save for just a moment from the world. You wanted to hide him in your arms and to promise him that he would never had to be alone again.

You didn't know a lot about his past and who he really was but in some rare and precious moments of shared honesty and openness he had trusted you with some truths about him and his past. You treasured these moments with your whole being, they were the moments you always got back to in your mind, wondering if this could mean hope for you and him, could these moments of just you and him mean the miracle of L sharing your feelings, could you two possibly have a connection?

_What if he feels the same?_

‚Love makes you the strongest and the bravest in your weakest moments‘, you thought, not remembering where you had heard that before, not really caring if it was a song, a movie quote or just some inspirational post from the internet.

Bolting up in your bed, you stared off into the distance for a moment, swung your legs over the edge and quickly stood up in one flowing movement.

It was time to be brave!

Carefully took L a piece of his cake onto his fork, balanced a blueberry on top of it and as he was about to eat his diligent creation of cake and fruit as he heard the door open and a familiar presence enter.

Oh no.

„Hey, hey!“, he was greeted with a cheerful voice but he felt like there was force behind her carefree attitude, like she was concentrating on appearing cheery and relaxed. What was going on?

L considered for a moment to keep his eyes glued to his cake on the fork but he couldn‘t. He was curious to find out why she would feel the need to appear more relaxed than she maybe was and he wanted to see her, badly.

He wanted to know what she wore today, would she have her hair tied to a knot or would she wear one of those hair slides that made her hair fall freely but not in her face and would he see her smile?

And would she sit down next to him, ask for a piece of cake, could they maybe even share a moment together with cake and coffee, with extra milk and three sugar cubes for her?

Mentally, L sighed deeply. He had to get his distance back, otherwise she would lure him in by just being herself.

She. Should. Not. Be. A. Priority.

He wanted to bang his head to the desk in front of him. How long should this–this _situation_ continue? The case would suffer if it would go on like this.

L turned around in his office chair and eventually faced her. She was standing just a metre away, her hands fidgeting with the sleeves of her cardigan and she tried to smile, which made it appear very stiff and forced.

„Good evening…“, he finally greeted her back.

He was tempted to add her name, just to taste it on his tongue, to see how she would react, if he would repeat it, standing up and getting closer to her.

He would come so close that he would feel her body against his if he would just move one millimetre closer, he would slowly caress her hand, feeling her warm skin under his fingers, never breaking eye contact, maybe just once to stare at her lips, slightly opened, and if she wouldn't move away, he would whisper her name once again and she would slowly nod and then he would kiss her, taking his time to get to know her lips, her mouth, her body would press against his, he would feel every curve and every heartbeat…

„Uhm, hey, Ryuzaki, uhm, did you hear me?“

„What?“, L gasped. Oh no, this wasn't happening, he couldn't be daydreaming in front of her, not daydreaming _about_ her.

‚Get your priorities together, L!‘, he scolded himself mentally.

The lips he had just fantasied about twitched a little, she seemed to be amused and this time her amusement and delightful look on her face was real and true.

Her whole posture had lost some of the stiffness, something about her appeared more calm…

His heart got warm on the sight of a real smile on her face.

„I am sorry, what did you say?“

He finally managed to stand up from his chair and took one step towards her, not too close, but close enough that it felt acceptable for two people that had spent time alone in the past and had shared moments and stories.

Her lips now turned into a bright smile and she laughed slightly, it was sincere and open and he felt better in an instant. (He would still like to know what it would be like to kiss her and be closer to her, her lips distracted him from everything else.)

„It‘s okay, we all go out of focus from time to time“, she reassured him.

„So, what I wanted to say was that I want to talk to you about something important, in private. Do, do you have time for that right now?“

_‚She wants to talk in private? Is that good? That’s not good! I didn't wanted her to be a priority, but now all I want to do is to be alone with her…_

_Going with her, letting her take me wherever she wants to. This is all I ever wanted since I met her, there could be a we– STOP!_

_No, no, no! Keep yourself together, keep your distance! I need distance if I want to keep my sanity, it is for the case! I’ll keep my distance for the case. It’s all for the case! I can’t make my own feelings a priority, I have to stay cool and collected- for the case. It’s all for the case–everything I did, everything I do!_

_But she wants to spend time with me, she wants to be alone with me–what if, what if…_

_WHAT IF SHE FEELS THE SAME?_

L‘s thoughts were running riot, he had to accept that he had lost control over the situation, that his heart and mind were not as easy to be controlled as he was used to, he had to accept that this situation was new to him and that maybe, just maybe, ignoring the cause of distress wouldn’t solve anything.

„Yes“, he finally answered, „I am free right now. We could go in my room, no one will disturb us there…“

„You have a room?“, she bursted out, surprise clearly written on her sweet face.

L shuffled from one foot to the other and then nodded.

„I have a room, of course. I need somewhere to shower and get fresh clothes from time to time.“

He shrugged a little, trying to appear like a normal person with a normal room and not some genius investigator who barely slept four hours a day, crouched in front of his computer screens.

„And do you sleep in your room as well?“, she asked, just like she was able to read his mind (hopefully that wasn't true, otherwise she would know by now what he felt and thought about her and he didn’t know if he could live with that)and he wasn't able to read her expression while she looked up at him.

„From time to time“, he answered vaguely, trying to remember the last time he had actually slept in his bed or even took time to be in his bed at least.

The carefully built cake-fruit tower lay forgotten with the fork on the plate.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there, I am happy to see you again, you read the whole chapter, wow, thank you so much!  
> I already have the first quarter of the next (and last chapter) and I have exam preparations to procrastinate from and a freshly arisen Death Note focus once again, therefore I hope to finish the story very soon.
> 
> All the best to you, I hope that you are well and safe.  
> Wear your mask, love!


End file.
